Aether Raids General Thread

[Tree]

Most players have made short work of my defense, but someone tried to bait Duma with the Black Knight (+6, 33 res), and it didn't go well. They lost two units total even though their team shouldn't have had any trouble (Black Knight, red and blue Micaiahs, Eir, New Year Azura). I feel kind of sad. (If anyone ever actually loses, I'm going to rematch them and give them a free win.)

I thought Tier 20 players wouldn't have any trouble with my map. It is lava because it fits Duma and isn't hard after the recent map balance. The team has two Dumas, and four in season legendaries: Hector, Marth, Ephraim, and Fjorm. (Some don't even have seals equipped.) Only have a Level 2 fortress with no bonus structure. Both Aether structures are easily accessible and a snowman is sitting up on the fortress to avoid melting from the lava.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Tree

[XRay]

7 minutes ago, Tree said:

Most players have made short work of my defense, but someone tried to bait Duma with the Black Knight (+6, 33 res), and it didn't go well. They lost two units total even though their team shouldn't have had any trouble (Black Knight, red and blue Micaiahs, Eir, New Year Azura). I feel kind of sad. (If anyone ever actually loses, I'm going to rematch them and give them a free win.)

I thought Tier 20 players wouldn't have any trouble with my map. It is lava because it fits Duma and isn't hard after the recent map balance. The team has two Dumas, and four in season legendaries: Hector, Marth, Ephraim, and Fjorm. (Some don't even have seals equipped.) Only have a Level 2 fortress and with no bonus structure. Both Aether structures are easily accessible and a snowman is sitting up on the fortress to avoid melting from the lava.

Misplay happens. I used up two Ladders in a row last week because I was sleep deprived. I should have just waited until morning, but I was not thinking straight. At least I realized I was sleep deprived when I used my second Ladder and did not use up all 3 Ladders.

I also would not bother with giving the player a free win, since you cannot be sure when he has protection active.

Edited March 13, 2019 by XRay

[Tree]

15 minutes ago, XRay said:

Misplay happens. I used up two Ladders in a row last week because I was sleep deprived. I should have just waited until morning, but I was not thinking straight. At least I realized I was sleep deprived when I used my second Ladder and did not use up all 3 Ladders.

I also would not bother with giving the player a free win, since you cannot be sure when he has protection active.

Yeah, I've done the wrong direction reposition before where Bow Lyn is sent over to say hi, rather than retreat to safety. Someone probably got a laugh out of that because it was obvious what happened.

Other than possible ranking rewards, a free win doesn't really cost me anything. I'm only Tier 20, so it's mostly top 10,000 or top 20,000 which leaves a lot of margin. (I have gotten top 6,000 a few times, but it's generally more stressful than it's worth.) Double defensive mythics cut my defense losses in half. Was expensive though as it cost around 400 orbs to get one [+spd, -atk] Duma. Fortunately, I also got a neutral one on the guaranteed free pull.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Tree

[Xenovia]

Halloween Kagero + Armor Boots + Dancers always got me at least two kills.  People actually thought they could bait out someone with a 3-cooldown Ignis and Bold Fighter lol.

[XRay]

1 minute ago, Xenovia said:

Halloween Kagero + Armor Boots + Dancers always got me at least two kills.  People actually thought they could bait out someone with a 3-cooldown Ignis and Bold Fighter lol.

Yeah that happens to me like one or twice a week. I thought I could bait with Counter-Vantage, but sometimes it does not work and my Laevatein dies. It is usually against bulky blue units and I forgot to factor in their color.

[Tree]

3 minutes ago, Xenovia said:

Halloween Kagero + Armor Boots + Dancers always got me at least two kills.  People actually thought they could bait out someone with a 3-cooldown Ignis and Bold Fighter lol.

Yeah, that's nasty. I see the Brave Bow Armor Jacob in similar setups. I do hope they will limit refresher units to one per party like the brigade requirements.

I was only about 180 lift short of Tier 21 with just one Eir, so with one upgrade (extra mythic, more aether, etc.) I could probably make it without any defense wins. That's the goal.

[Stroud]

So free wins in T21 do exist. Got weaponless Takumis today.
I am glad about Astra and Dark Blessings. I have enough Light blessings for backup. And I already try to plan a bit beforehand which units will be on my Second AR Team for Astra.
If Duma is Anima I think it is likely for Mila to be Astra. If she comes out oh boy, first Legendary/Mythic hero I dare to merge (long term and after Rinkah of course). 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Stroud

[Johann]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Coming around full circle, you still haven't managed to make a decent argument as to why "petty ego shit" means that they actually care that you beat them once.

You seem to think that people who have their ego inflated by their high-value defense team seem to take a loss as a monumental disaster such that you sticking it to their face by destroying their defense team is actually meaningful to them. If anything, I think that you're the one having your ego inflated by your victory thinking that you're the only one who was able to thwart them.

 

Comparing against other players in the same week means you're all using the same bonus structures and bonus units.

Bonus structures also cycle in the same order. Seasons also cycle in the same order. These are all factors that can easily be accounted for over time.

I don't think bonus units change the landscape as much as you think. They basically skew the availability of certain unit roles, but that also averages out over time.

 

And why wouldn't this, like everything else, average out over time? Literally the entire point of averages is to smooth out outliers.

 

And as I literally just said, every little bit counts for something.

 

Being assured success is always wishful thinking whether or not you spend money.

What spending money does is make success easier by giving you more resources to use, and any boost at all is better than no boost.

 

Which part and why? "Nope" is literally not an actual argument.

Still at it, huh? See, this is some petty ego shit in action right here. I'm talking about sticking it to those goons in AR and you're over here trying to making a grand case in defense of total strangers because you hate to admit that you care way too much about how everyone else perceives you, especially here.

1 hour ago, XRay said:

Often times, Pulse teams or whatever broken set ups are the cheapest option. For players who primarily summon for game play performance instead of for favorites, the best skills in the game are actually pretty easy to obtain. With so many players able to summon and merge their favorites to +10, it is just as equally easy to apply that same amount of effort into meta skills and units.

Firesweep Bow, Wrathful Staff, Dazzling Staff, and Distant Counter are relatively expensive for most players, but those skills are pretty cheap for me because I did not shy away from colorless Orbs and I made sure to grab a Hector or two whenever he is a Focus unit. In contrast, Steady Breath and Warding Breath are very expensive for me because I did not prioritize sniping for Breaths as I did for Distant Counter.

I didn't really give any examples, but cheaper options means more like using things like 4* available skills, the right seals, that sort of thing. The deadliest unit on my Def team is a regular Takumi (+1, +HP) who's packing only 4* launch skills (except Fujin Yumi refine and Atk/Spd+2 seal). Granted, he's only deadly because of how he's used in conjunction with other units and the map's layout, but a lot of players could replicate the main components of my setup and get similar results, without doing anything drastic with feathers/orbs/grails/etc

[Ice Dragon]

Won only three of today's five matches with one of those wins being a freebie. I guess I'll call it for the day and deal with this mode later in the week.

One of these days, I should really build myself some real additional teams instead of the single unit swaps I'm currently using. Fae can only tank so much, even with Kaden behind her, and has mobility problems if I separate her from the rest of the team to prevent ranged units from hitting the back line. Ophelia is capable of utterly crushing enemies without mobility, but doesn't have enough actions in one turn to completely disable most enemy teams completely on her own.

Maybe I can make another enemy-phase team centered around Keaton with Distant Counter and Null C-Disrupt? I'm sick of dealing with Firesweepers taking free potshots, but I don't know if Keaton is bulky enough (particularly on the magic side) without something like Vantage to keep him alive.

@DehNutCase @XRay (or anyone else) Any advice for building a player-phase team? Things like which characters work well (Galeforce Tibarn?), builds, how many of each unit role to bring, and things like that. I realized that the extent of my team building skills for player phase mostly revolve around throwing as many ranged units with Hone skills together as I can, and that's probably not going to work in Aether Raids.

 

2 hours ago, Johann said:

Still at it, huh? See, this is some petty ego shit in action right here. I'm talking about sticking it to those goons in AR and you're over here trying to making a grand case in defense of total strangers because you hate to admit that you care way too much about how everyone else perceives you, especially here.

Why wouldn't I be? You of all people should know just how much I'll try to stick it to you if you try to half-ass an argument against me with hand-waving and baseless statements.

And unless I'm mistaken, you've just stooped to ad hominem and name-calling, which I suppose means you've run out of hands to wave.

Spoiler

And I have no idea why you think I care how people perceive me.

 

EDIT:

5 minutes ago, Johann said:

Fuck off, sealion

Pretty bold of you to call me a sea lion after dismissing my argument as some "petty ego shit".

Edited March 13, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Johann]

4 hours ago, Lewyn said:

Do the Ophelia's (or other characters) running Hardy Bearing usually have it leveled up?  Duma is a bonus unit this week, so I could run him on offense too and if they don't have Eir on their team maybe that can counter that strategy.  Though they would also not have to have healers either, who depending on their placement may heal Ophelia first.

I like running Aversa a lot, and I do have Gunnthra too.  Horses (Gunnthra, Veronica or Bow Lyn, Hrid, Camus) with an Aversa have generally worked fairly well.  Thing is my Hrid is +HP (so more bulk) but -atk which is going to hurt his killing ability.  

I have Silas as armor killer and Panne or Gray as horse killers, but neither are heavily invested into (no DC).  Veronica can be a problem as far as horses cause I can't counter her so I have to player phase.  Even if I can tank her successfully many times she is in range of a dancer and then she will go and attack one of my more vulnerable units.  The rest of the horses I can usually handle (though firesweep anything is tough) without special devotion.  Micaiah and Dancing Micaiah I have for armors, but I don't run into all armor teams much usually just one or two at most.

As I said I don't have legendary Azura, so I rely on other dancers of which I have most of them (no Flying Olivia or the Hoshiden dancers besides Micaiah).  

For my vantage unit I was thinking of Camus, mine is at +3 and already is running vantage.  Brazen Atk/def in the seal slot and attack tactic or hone cav buff and would that be enough to take out most mages? Guess I could experiment with that.  

Yeah, I've never seen anyone with anything less than maxed Hardy Bearing. Also a lot of people have Healing Towers so Upheaval isn't going to be 100% reliable. Best thing you can hope to do is push that bulky/Vantage unit in there to kill Ophelia or something similar.

While Frederick is my favorite armor killer, I think any unit with high Atk and at least decent mobility (so no armors) should be ok to use. No need to stick to cavalry like I do. As for a horse killer, you really only need to have someone who can take out the big threats: Reinhardt, Lyn, Veronica in particular, with the odd Cecilia or melee here and there. Most ranged cavalry with good offense should be able to pull this off unless the unit is particularly resilient and/or buffed like crazy. I wouldn't use non-cavalry for this specific role unless they have good defenses and Null C-Disrupt, in which case you have something more flexible anyway.

Next to Legendary Azura, the herons are great, as is Performing Azura. Dancing Micaiah is an excellent choice too due to her weapon. Barring these, even a basic Olivia is still great. I'm not a fan of other ranged dancers though since they run the risk of getting hit by Tactics Room.

Camus is a decent choice for Vantage, though I think there are units with even higher Atk which would be better since it comes down to those counter kills. Even getting 75 Atk means it'll only be 60 against greens, and only the softest mages are going to die to that.

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

*fart noises*

Fuck off, sealion

[DehNutCase]

45 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Any advice for building a player-phase team? Things like which characters work well (Galeforce Tibarn?), builds, how many of each unit role to bring, and things like that. I realized that the extent of my team building skills for player phase mostly revolve around throwing as many ranged units with Hone skills together as I can, and that's probably not going to work in Aether Raids.

Honestly I'd recommend against player phase teams---when I said they can take up to 30 minutes a map I wasn't joking. They also score like shit since Eir isn't exactly a first choice ranged unit. (She is a second choice ranged unit, so I don't mind running one of her, but running 2 copies of her means you don't have variety on your two ranged damage dealers---Lyn & Rein combo well in part because they hit both defensive stats.)

 

That said, the key to designing a player phase team for AR is realizing that the enemy has 5 units, and you have 6. This isn't a problem for EP or mixed-phase teams (hence why I, uh, used to drag CC Reinhardt around---I moved all my FEH time to Conquest time), but it does mean you have some annoying ass conditions to fulfill as a player phase team.

 

Basically, you have to make sure you survive the first EP round after engaging, which can be done 3 ways:

1, Everyone on the enemy team is dead, which requires Galeforce, since you have to get 6 unit-turns from somewhere. (This is not ideal if you're trying to grab pots.)

 

2, No one on the enemy team can reach any of your units because you ran the hell away after sniping some units. (You should ask XRay about this, he should know how to pilot hit and run teams more than I do.)

 

3, You abused the crap out of Galeforce and managed to stand places you aren't reasonably allowed to stand, meaning you either blocked a ranged unit into having no attacks or else you controlled movement so that all possible attack targets would survive combat. I did a week of this, but back when it was 5v5 primarily, if you want to do this for 5v6s you need to look into level 1 Escape Route dancers and Wings of Mercy Galeforce units.

Note that this team scores like shit because you can only run 1 Eir, in place of Fjorm. (It's also not mine.)

 

The main concept of Galeforce PP teams is that:

Every trigger of WoM or Escape route is a free unit-turn you don't have to spend on positioning.

Every trigger of Galeforce is an extra unit-turn, and because you start the turn where you ended, you only need to spend turns on positioning for the first combat.

You need to acquire 6 units turn (to wipe the enemy team), or 5 unit turns (if you manage to calculate a body-block), spent on combats to clear a map.

 

In the video example Navarre was running WoM & his Scarlet Sword stuff with Galeforce. This makes him pretty clearly the 'follow-up' Galeforce unit.

Ephraim is using hit and run and Galeforce, which pretty clearly makes him the one that's supposed to initiate. (Hit and Run is so that Azura can actually dance him after he fights, since he has 3 move.)

 

Galeforce units are about consistency of triggering Galeforce and consistency of reaching combat. Ephraim is very good at both (due to his Prf and high Str stat to trigger Heavy Blade), Tibarn is very good at reaching combat, and Navarre is very good at triggering Galeforce. Cordelia is actually so-so at both, due to not having crazy Str and not having 3 move, so you don't need to be too strict about Galeforce units.

 

The team is pretty much: 2 Dancers, 1 or 2 Galeforce units, 1 or 2 bonus units. Dancers and Galeforce should be self-explanatory, and the bonus units should do something to cover things that give your Galeforce units trouble---I ran Rein and Lyn in my old Galeforce team because they both had reposition to move Cordelia's 2 move ass forward, and because they had very good coverage between the two of them, and when they move to reposition Cordelia they end turn in the perfect spot to be danced. The pair also gave the team a back-up plan as a regular hit and run team, but I didn't use it much because that would've made my 30 minutes of pre-map planning turn into 2 hours of pre-map planning while I figured out AI movement on top of everything else.

Fjorm had smite in the video above, +Atk & something Link, so she was mobility support, ranged damage dealer, and buffer) But I can see things like gravity, savage blow, as options as well. Honestly your best bet is to go in with something like 2 dancer, 2 galeforce, 1 Eir, and figuring out what exactly you want from your non-Eir support.

This wasn't a perfect clear, but I don't have a lot of 5v6 records. (Since I have to remember to record them, and I was getting way too sick of AR to pilot my Galeforce team at the necessary level---it was mostly Nailah + Corrin carrying my ass or dying trying.)

 

If you count mixed-phase teams as player phase there's also the 4th option:

Everyone who can attack your main damage dealer is OHKO'd by Vantage, and he's standing in the right place so that he doesn't kill literally everyone the first enemy phase. (Reinhardt is very good at the positioning part, and running something like a Pain or Gravity staffer with double Savage Blow means that it should be freakishly difficult to wall him, meaning the main problem is using your huge mobility to combat the enemy's near perfect positioning at the start of map. This tends to need 2 dancers, but you can really only fit 1 since you have to run Eir for scoring.)

 

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

They also score like shit since Eir isn't exactly a first choice ranged unit.

Shouldn't be a problem on Astra weeks like this one. I'm hoping the first Astra Hero is good at player phase, but with dragons as the primary contenders for Mythic Heroes, it's unfortunately unlikely.

Anyways, I'm taking notes. Thanks for the massive write-up!

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

@DehNutCase @XRay (or anyone else) Any advice for building a player-phase team? Things like which characters work well (Galeforce Tibarn?), builds, how many of each unit role to bring, and things like that. I realized that the extent of my team building skills for player phase mostly revolve around throwing as many ranged units with Hone skills together as I can, and that's probably not going to work in Aether Raids.

My main team does not actually have a really good record. They can usually win, but often times I sacrifice a unit to secure a win since I am lazy.

41 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

2, No one on the enemy team can reach any of your units because you ran the hell away after sniping some units. (You should ask XRay about this, he should know how to pilot hit and run teams more than I do.)

I am not sure if a pure hit and run team is as viable in higher tiers. My hit and run team is BH!Lyn, NS!F!Corrin, Olivia, and VS!Azura and I primarily use that team if the defense team box one or two units into the corners to stall. Those teams appear sometimes in Tier 20, but I do not see them as often as I used to in lower Tiers.

My main team runs Laevatein instead of NS!F!Corrin since she can one shot a lot things on Turn 1 or Turn 2 Enemy Phase. When I need to sacrifice a unit, it is usually Laevatein or one of the Dancers/Singers.

[Diovani Bressan]

I am surprised with my Defensive results. 4 Defensive Battles: 4 Success, 0 Failure. And my defensive team isn't that great!

[Azuni]

Galeforce strats are glorious for off-weeks like this (I'll miss it when we're forced to use Astra to compete for top1k/3k).

So far this week I've been using Eliwood as my primary galeforce, with Velouria as the WoM galeforce to followup.
Other units on the team are Olivia and Leanne for WoM dancers, and the last slot has been my Blade CC-vantage Cecilia or a Brave Bow WoM Brave Lyn

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/XQQtphx

 

[Ice Dragon]

8 hours ago, XRay said:

My main team does not actually have a really good record. They can usually win, but often times I sacrifice a unit to secure a win since I am lazy.

I am not sure if a pure hit and run team is as viable in higher tiers. My hit and run team is BH!Lyn, NS!F!Corrin, Olivia, and VS!Azura and I primarily use that team if the defense team box one or two units into the corners to stall. Those teams appear sometimes in Tier 20, but I do not see them as often as I used to in lower Tiers.

My main team runs Laevatein instead of NS!F!Corrin since she can one shot a lot things on Turn 1 or Turn 2 Enemy Phase. When I need to sacrifice a unit, it is usually Laevatein or one of the Dancers/Singers.

Losing a single unit here or there is still fine by me.

I might try stealing your Vantage Laevatein, though.

[LordFrigid]

14 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Any advice for building a player-phase team? Things like which characters work well (Galeforce Tibarn?), builds, how many of each unit role to bring, and things like that. I realized that the extent of my team building skills for player phase mostly revolve around throwing as many ranged units with Hone skills together as I can, and that's probably not going to work in Aether Raids.

I use a couple different Player Phase offense raiding parties.

The first is Galeforce based. It looks like that’s been covered pretty well already, but I’ve had a lot of success running Caeda, Tana, Legendary Azura, and Azura (Lady of the Lake) as the core. Galeforce Velouria (supported to Azura) as my bonus unit is also really nice right now. Some additional notes:

• They all run Galeforce if possible. They’re also all running Wings of Mercy except Caeda, who is currently using Desperation, which has been nice to deal with “trapped-in-the-corner” armors.
• The bonus unit always has Smite to help with approaching. I haven’t experimented with 3-mov units like Ephraim, Eirika, and Tibarn, though Legendary Azura helps with movement deficiencies a lot.
• A Galeforce refresher is really nice to have on hand, and can open up hit and run options if the enemy refresher(s) are reasonably exposed. Only one, though, since refreshers can’t refresh each other.
• The setup is notably weak to teams that can’t counterattack at one range. The prominence of ranged units also makes Slaying weapons (or other means of reducing cooldown count) virtually necessary. As mentioned previously, there’s also a lot of planning and calculation involved with HP, doubling, and KO thresholds.

The other one is centered around Celica. This one’s pretty self-explanatory; after one fight she has Ragnarok ready, after two the refreshers can Wings to her. As with the Galeforce raiding party, I run Smite on the bonus unit, Galeforce Azura (Lady of the Lake), and Legendary Azura. I try to get into a situation where I can have Azura get a KO and activate Galeforce to clear out as much of the enemy team as possible. Legendary Azura greatly improves Celica’s reach. I could theoretically use a second Galeforce refresher for this team, actually, but my Heavy Blade seal is stuck to Tana outside of PvE one-turns.

I end up using those two raiding parties about equally, for the majority of my non-Light season battles. The uncommon Seliph usually forces me to use my Ophelia setup, and I usually break out the basic Eirika+Kaden EP-focused team at least once. I’m not really sure what to do with my fifth slot, so I’m just experimenting with various things right now.

[Hilda]

This mode is killing me. I am halfassing it because of the 4 additional blessings and the fact i dont want to split my barracks in half... which is very dissatisfying for me. I really wish they wouldnt have introduced the new blessings. I am fine with mythic heroes but the blessings should have stayed water fire wind water but just with different effects on mythic heroes. As it is, i am just hoarding mythic blessing and am not invested in it. At this point i wish they would just remove all the crap including AR.

[Diovani Bressan]

I got another successful defensive result. 5 wins, 0 losses. I would be more happier if this was Light Season. There is no way I can reach the next Tier only scoring 100 lift at max.

[Tree]

Why do people repeated try to bait bold-fighter Duma with low resistance units? Someone lost their Tibarn doing that this time. Sigh... I've unequipped everything now. They better not run out of turns or I'll be forced to take further action.

[XRay]

1 hour ago, Tree said:

Why do people repeated try to bait bold-fighter Duma with low resistance units? Someone lost their Tibarn doing that this time. Sigh... I've unequipped everything now. They better not run out of turns or I'll be forced to take further action.

Ooh! If you could, can you post some of your hilarious defense wins? I imagine it would give people a good laugh.

Maybe they thought it was a good idea and accidentally did it on purpose without thinking. Brain farts happen sometimes, like the previous sentence.

[Xenovia]

17 hours ago, XRay said:

My main team runs Laevatein instead of NS!F!Corrin since she can one shot a lot things on Turn 1 or Turn 2 Enemy Phase. When I need to sacrifice a unit, it is usually Laevatein or one of the Dancers/Singers.

At first glance I thought it was NSFW Corrin lol.

19 hours ago, Johann said:

Fuck off, sealion

Just imagine going against a turbochad like @Ice Dragon and thinking you're going to win.

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Xenovia said:

At first glance I thought it was NSFW Corrin lol.

Ha! That is a good one. Maybe I will her that from now on.

[Tree]

2 hours ago, XRay said:

Ooh! If you could, can you post some of your hilarious defense wins? I imagine it would give people a good laugh.

Maybe they thought it was a good idea and accidentally did it on purpose without thinking. Brain farts happen sometimes, like the previous sentence.

Yeah, they probably just didn't realize how strong even [-atk] Duma really is. Last season, someone even sent a weak ranged unit right up to danger itself. They played silly the entire time and surrendered with a couple units left. I rewatched it a few times thinking they had made a mistake, but it really appeared on purpose. It was at the end of the season, so I think they were actually trying to give out free lift protection. I wish I could have sent them a friend request, but there's no way to do that to someone who loses (even on purpose). Perhaps I'll record sometime, but haven't bothered to figure that out.

[eclipse]

I go through some major life things, and then I come back to a bunch of tickets.

Behave yourselves, guys.  Really.